Zarate's parents tell of unusual behavior

Hours after Jonathan Zarate beat and stabbed his teenage neighbor to death and cut off her lower legs on the first floor of his home, his father went downstairs to clean up for a luncheon, never smelling the bleach his son had used to cover up the killing or spotting blood stains on the carpet, he testified yesterday.

John Zarate was one of three family members who took the witness stand in a Morristown courtroom to support the defense claim that Zarate, 21, was psychotic when he attacked his next-door neighbor, 16-year-old Jennifer Parks, on July 30, 2005.

Zarate is pursuing a diminished capacity defense, claiming he cannot be held criminally liable for her death.

Zarate's divorced parents told the jury their son's behavior had been worsening, and he defecated in his pants and all over the bathroom, developed an aversion to touching things and took showers lasting as long as two hours.

John Zarate said he went into the downstairs of his Randolph home at 5:45 a.m. because he was expecting 40 guests for lunch.

His son has confessed he killed Parks about 2:30 a.m. after she insulted his younger brother, James.

John Zarate said he had to clean excrement in the bathroom and began washing some of the dozen piles of laundry he found. He insisted he saw no blood nor smelled bleach, which Jonathan Zarate admitted using to clean up the scene and which left light stains on the carpet.

"I can submit myself to a lie detector," the elder Zarate told Morris County Executive Assistant Prosecutor Robert Lane.

Lane noted John Zarate never told a defense psychiatrist that he had discovered excrement in his son's bathroom. The father said he must have forgotten.

Lane called into question the father's claim he went downstairs at 5:45 a.m. to wash clothes, and he didn't notice any signs of the attack.

"Which ones did you wash? The ones that were bloody?" Lane asked.

A judge sustained an objection to the question.

Zarate's parents explained that their elder son had taken their 1997 divorce hard, and developed academic and behavioral problems over the years.

He began biting his nails, missing the toilet when he urinated, pacing the floor at night and staring.

He had an aversion to cleaning his excrement, even when offered gloves, they said.

He flunked 11th grade twice, but got his GED two weeks before the killing.

"So you're here to tell us today he took long showers, bit his nails and urinated around the toilet bowl?" Lane said.

The parents testified that they became so concerned that his mother, Flora Mari, took Zarate to a psychiatrist in March 2005.

But the psychiatrist who evaluated Zarate didn't diagnose him with any mental illness or prescribe any medication, and concluded the problem was a lack of communication between Zarate and Mari, Lane pointed out.

Mari said the doctor "told me something different" and she was "very disappointed" with him. "I know Jonathan needs help," she said.

Mari's husband, Rodrigo, testified that he became afraid of Jonathan Zarate in the months before Parks was killed.

By May 2005, Mari said Zarate's reaction to being disciplined, including the looks on his face, scared him enough to think about getting a lock fixed on their bedroom door.

Zarate was caught 24 hours after the deadly attack as he tried to dump Parks' dismembered body off a Rutherford bridge with the help of James Zarate, then 14, and a 16-year-old Clifton boy, authorities said.

John Zarate said that by 2004, his son was taking two-hour showers and "using the whole soap."

He said he spoke to his sister, who is a psychiatrist, about his son. He said he once shut off the water.

Asked about Zarate's behavior the day before the killing, John Zarate said his son "was kind of gone."

But on cross-examination, he conceded he had told a defense psychiatrist that his son's behavior was normal that day.

That psychiatrist, Diana Riccioli, will testify Monday when the trial resumes.

Margaret McHugh may be reached at mmchugh@starledger.com or (973) 539-7119.